Lights in the Windows

I biked yesterday from Sátoraljaújhely’s Museum of the Hungarian Language (which a student had recommended to me) all the way up to downtown Košice, Slovakia–in four hours or so, over hill, over dale. There is more to the whole trip than I want to put into words right now–stories upon stories–but here are two photos from the evening, after I returned by train from Košice to Slovenské Nové Mesto, the Slovak side of Sátoraljaújhely. Here is a horse grazing by the Ronyva stream, which separates the two countries here and the two sides of the town.

A little later, I passed by Sátoraljaújhely‘s little ohel (by the Jewish cemetery) and saw it lit up inside. There was a car parked out in front. I was so happy to see signs of life–though I may have misinterpreted the situation–that I thought of going up and knocking on the door. I immediately thought the better of it, though; I was bedraggled from the bike ride and did not want to bother anyone or show disrespect. Those lights may well have been signs of loss; beyond that, the place holds more losses than I will ever know. Under different circumstances, with advance inquiry and permission, I might visit one day; this was not the right time.

Pesach Sheni–“Second Pesach,” also known as “The Holiday of Second Chances,” had ended just an hour earlier; it’s possible that some people had come to the ohel to observe it. In that case, someone might have stayed late to put things back in place. But something entirely different may have been going on.

I biked onward toward Sárospatak, where I spent last night (I returned home today). Along the way, I heard frogs in the muddy stream and recorded the sounds. I learned last week from a student that frogs say “brekeke” in Hungarian. Remarkable, that! That must have come from Aristophanes’ Frogs, but how and when? Apparently there is even a Hungarian verb brekegni, which means “croaking,” or, more figuratively, “chattering.” My dictionary doesn’t have it, but it does have brekeg (“croak”), brekegés (“croaking”), and (my favorite of all) brekegő (“croaky, croaking”). Unlike “croak” in English, these words have no connotation of death.

That brings me back to the Hungarian language, where one segment of the bike trip started. But this does not mean that I have come “full circle”; no circle circumscribes these past few days. Or if one does, it will take me some time to bike it.

As of November 2017, she teaches English, American civilization, and British civilization at the Varga Katalin Gimnázium in Szolnok, Hungary. From 2011 to 2016, she helped shape and teach the philosophy program at Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science & Engineering in New York City. In 2014, her students released the inaugural issue of their philosophy journal, CONTRARIWISE, which has international participation and readership.